With a delayed review on Sonic and Prince of Persia, I figured I’d give you guys a few pointers in Left 4 Dead. Particularly… the No Mercy stage. The only stage I ever play in versus. I’ll also conclude this post with a few game improvements I think valve should bring to the game.

More after the break!

Tactics!

As a survivor, you NEED to stick together. You also want to survive. The longer the level lasts, the lower your probability of survival is. I’m not saying run for your life, slow pokes be damned. I mean… once one person gets eliminated the rest of you just became that much easier to incapacitate!

Close the doors behind you! Zombies can’t open them by clicking X or whatever PC users press. They need to bust through. If you manage to close them and gain distance from them, you’re that much better off. Special zombies are slower than you. They’ll only catch up once they can press X due to the fact that they’re so far behind.

Use your pipe bombs and molotovs well. I’ve seen some folk just throw them cause they got them. It can be such a waste at times. For the final stretch of any level, when you call an evacuation, use molotovs on tanks only. Keep a pipe bomb for your rush to the vehicle. Before that last point in the map, I’d suggest using molotovs to cover holes in the ground from where the zombies climb up from, or possibly when you believe a tank might get triggered. By now you should know the usual spots or patterns that the AI director spawns the tank. As for pipe bombs before the evacuation segment, I’d suggest using it at moments when you “alert the horde” or get puked on by a boomer.

Melee, Melee, Melee. It’s EXTREMELY practical VS Hunters and Smokers. Someone’s tangled right next to you, melee. Can’t reach the smoker? Melee. Don’t bother killing him, you should know where he is and he can’t bother you for a while. Hunter’s pounced a guy next to you, instead of unloading your clip on the hunter and the survivor. Try to melee! I’ve seen people pump the shotgun for a few seconds without getting the hunter off the person. All this time the hunter’s just eating away at the survivor’s HP.

If you REALLY need to move and you feel the need to heal the survivor in front of you… don’t toss him some pills if you have some. That shit’s instant. Bandaging isn’t.

As a special zombie, there are tactics you can use too! As a boomer, when you manage to puke on folk, your regen timer for the puke takes a while to come back, just wait a while and then jump in your your kamikaze attack. The fact that they’ll shoot you will ooze them for that much longer. And of course, coordinated attacker with other specials works quite well when the survivors can’t see each other. As a smoker, dragging someone to a precipice, is AWESOME. Dragging someone from a window, making them retrace their steps is AWESOME. Dragging them off a roof to fall and take damage is AWESOME. You can almost kill a guy if you drag them off the roof during the last segment where they go to get evacuated from mercy hospital. Pairing up with a hunter benifits you alot. As a hunter… pouncing on folk that have just climbed stairs will get them to fall back down. Getting those people running point alone, lets you dig into their chest for a while before they get help. Same goes for those folks that are lost or alone in the back. If they manage to be alone in a point of no return this usually spells death. As a tank, cars can be your friend. You can pin people down with them. Try and not kill your fellow zombies in the process. Stay away from fire. Stay away from the line of sight of those turrets.

That’s it for now! Comment if you can think of other tactics!

So what improvements should valve bring to Left 4 Dead? Vote return to lobby. I once played a game with a guy spamming this every moment he had. This idiot was pissed that his buddy was stuck in spectator and instead of exiting the game and finding another one, he decided it was great to make everyone vote continuously. The return to lobby screen takes a LARGE portion of the screen. To improve this, I would say that capping the amount of times you can call such a vote would be a wise move. Another one would be to announce who is calling the vote. I knew who was doing it because I was observant enough to notice such a pattern. I couldn’t however vote kick the dude. He was on the other team. They had no idea who it was and we had to suffer through this for a fairly long period of time.

On top of the Mercy Hospital, there’s some metal ramp you can hide under. This ramp allows zombie access through one narrow passage. It’s the best and easiest way to camp it out until the chopper. Hunters can’t pounce in because they hit the top of the ramp. Smokers are completely open to being shot down while trying to pull one out. Boomers can puke on them from the side of the ramp but it’s useless, the zombies can’t make it inside. The tank will get killed on his way in. a simple molotov and all the survivors shooting in the same direction will take him down quite fast.

Victor Games